Butthole Surfers: The Hole Truth And Nothing Butt (2025) – Bodacious

Released: 15th August
Seen: 12th September

In 1996, a song called Pepper made it onto the charts and became somewhat of a hit. While it only barely made it to the top 40 on the mainstream charts, it hit number one on the modern Rock charts, which back then actually meant something. It was at least enough to get you noticed, maybe even get a performance on Letterman. It also didn’t hurt that the band’s name was The Butthole Surfers, a name so immediately iconic that it would go on to be referenced by The Simpsons and remain a punchline for decades to come. Pepper turned The Butthole Surfers into one of those magical acts that can lovingly be called “One Hit Wonder”, which is still a pretty big thing for a lot of young bands… by the time The Butthole Surfers got their one hit, they’d been a pretty popular underground touring band for 15 years with a fascinating history that is presented with great adoration by the film Butthole Surfers: The Hole Truth And Nothing Butt.

For a documentary about a band like The Butthole Surfers, Butthole Surfers: The Hole Truth and Nothing Butt tells its story in a fairly conventional manner. Going chronologically from the moment that the band first got together and following their career through the years to the present day, we’re presented with the fascinating twisted tale of this band that went through bass players like Spinal Tap goes through drummers. Using a combination of interviews with every member of Butthole Surfers, current and former, along with a stunning amount of archival footage and some creative recreations using puppets that look like they were rejected from Crank Yankers for being too ugly, the audience gets to learn about the long and absolutely batshit career of this gang of musical anarchists.

While the film does kind of do what a lot of musical documentaries tend to do in terms of how it presents the band, what really helps Butthole Surfers: The Hole Truth And Nothing Butt stand out is that it presents everything with a healthy splash of humour, almost like everyone involved went “This is a film about a band called the Butthole Surfers… we’re not going to get a serious moment with that name” and just embraced it. It’s easy to state that this is one of the funniest documentaries that has come out in a while, knowing when to lean in and linger on a particularly wild story or when to cleverly edit in the perfect reaction from one of their talking heads. The use of puppets also helps with the tone, as it allows some of the darker moments to have enough levity to make them palatable. 

For a film that has to cover over 20 years of a band’s life, this one does a very effective job without ever feeling like it’s rushing through. It’s careful to lay out a lot of key moments, touch on stuff that’s funny but not essential and let other major moments linger. It’s also economical in how it uses the interviews, namely by making a very pointed choice to only interview people who were actually in the band during the time period that they’re talking about. This almost turns into a running joke with the multiple bass players they had, some of whom were in the band for such a brief amount of time that they may get 30 seconds on screen in an interview before they’re just never seen again. This really helps paint a picture of how hectic and insane this band could be, even before hearing the stories about how off their faces they would get just before hitting the stage to do a couple of legendary underground performances.

Throughout the entire film, you really can’t help but just fall in love with this weird little bunch of misfits and their obvious love of making this insane, weird music that kept them driving around the country in a beat-up old car. Their passion for the art is obvious in every second, and even through the darkest moments, you can just feel that there is a boundless love for music and for performing that has kept these guys going for almost 35 years as a band. You end up gaining a certain respect for this little band that most people probably know for maybe one song and a very silly name. It’s the kind of documentary that you really hope all one-hit wonders can get so they’re able to be given the legacy they deserve.

I also just personally want to give the film praise for a very simple thing that it did right at the start. Over the years, I have readily and loudly screamed about films that thrust strobe lighting onto their audience without warning. I find it to be abhorrent since it is basically throwing your audience a live hand grenade and hoping it doesn’t take them out. The documentary about the Butthole Surfers did the simplest thing that I appreciate, and opened up with a warning screen to say that there would be strobes. This was clearly a part of the actual film and not something added on by the festival that showed it. They took the time to let people know that this was a risk factor and that a warning is something that many can’t even be bothered to do, so it just needed to be brought up as a genuine positive.

Butthole Surfers: The Hole Truth And Nothing Butt is funny, touching, shocking and crude at times but always with a sense of pure joy. You’ll go into this film maybe only knowing this band for one song but by the end of it you’ll have found something fascinating. Sure, their music might not be for everyone, you’re probably not going to run out and buy a copy of their album Locust Abortion Technician, but you are going to at least appreciate that this band has managed to maintain their own unique style over several decades and never changed who they are. It’s a truly fascinating look at a band that made surfing on buttholes into an international pastime.